Annetje Ottow, former acting chairwoman of OPTA, to sit on Board of new British regulator

Annetje Ottow, Ph.D., has been appointed a non-executive Director of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA will be legally established on October 1, 2013, following the merger of two British competition authorities, the Competition Commission and the Office of Fair Trading. The primary objective of the new authority is to promote competition for the benefit of consumers.  The CMA Board will have five executive members and seven non-executive members. The CMA is planned to be fully operational on April 1, 2014.

Ms. Ottow (47) is senior lecturer in Public Economic Law at the Europa Institute at Utrecht University. Her research interests are in market oversight and government, competition law, and sector-specific regulation.  Previously, Ms. Ottow was the acting chairwoman of the Commission of OPTA, the Netherlands Independent Post and Telecommunication Authority. On April 1, 2013, OPTA merged with the Netherlands Consumer Authority and the Netherlands Competition Authority into the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets. Up until that merger, Ms. Ottow had been primarily focused on the strategy of ACM.